Broom
by Mrs. HopeEstheim
Summary: In which Max contemplates the beginning of his horrifying relationship with Broom. Contribution to ftsidecharactersweek. Crack!fic, drabble. COMPLETE.


**My super cracky contribution to FT side characters week. I don't know why it happened, it just _did_. I submitted it to the ftsidecharactersweek tumblr page and credited both my FFnet account and my tumblr. **

**Also, I'm proud of the exactly 1000 words that the story, sans author's notes, came out. I don't even know how it happened.**

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The first time Max had an encounter with _that_ particular broom, he was absolutely horrified.

Somehow, in the midst of the guild's usual antics, he had been stripped of all of his possessions and battered around so much that he had lost all sense of the situation. He was just _there_ , in the crushing mass of Fairy Tail bodies, as they fought and shoved and just caused havoc. Max never noticed when his clothes disappeared, and somehow he missed that…that _thing_ ending up… _there_.

But then he woke, and upon realizing an extreme discomfort, found out just what it was.

His scream had woken every single member of the guild, and perhaps all the citizens of Magnolia, to boot. It was no trifling matter, after all, because he'd been violated even worse than Lucy that time her boob had been caught in a door.

There was a _broom_ up his—well, you know.

As a Fairy Tail mage, though, Max did his utmost to shake the feeling off and move on with life. Isn't that what all Fairy Tail mages seemed to do best nowadays? Live and let live, and all that philanthropic crap he never cared much for? Move on and just let go?

He would just have to wait for the day when he could sit down like a normal human being again, and then things would be normal.

They had to be normal.

But as time passed, he started to notice _it_ almost everywhere he went. He'd waltz into the guild, whistling a happy tune, only to freeze when he saw it, leaning innocently against the counter where Mira had left it when someone had asked for something to drink. And when fights started, he always seemed to find it in his arms, or smacking him in the face…or heaven forbid, he'd find it right where he'd first encountered it.

 _This broom had to go_. That was the only reasonable solution…but when Max went to the guild to find it and burn it, it was gone!

The next day, it came back to haunt him with a vengeance, and he truly believed that the broom knew he wanted it destroyed and was purposely getting back at him for all the evil thoughts he'd been having. First, as soon as he walked in the door, Max tripped over it. When he looked at the ground and saw it, his skin crawled and he pushed himself to his feet, running as far away as he could possibly get within the guild hall. But just a few short hours later, Natsu and Gray got into a fight and it went flying. The horrible artifact landed _right next to him_ and Max started to wonder if the broom was sentient.

He decided that he _knew_ the broom was out to get him when he was walking home that night and found it leaning against his apartment door, innocently looking at him—how it was looking without eyes he didn't have a fucking clue, but he felt the damn thing staring at him, okay?

Max didn't even go in his house. He stared at the broom for a few minutes and then bolted, hunkering down on a bench in the park for the night.

The next few weeks were a constant torture, because it followed him. He wondered sometimes if this is how Gray had felt when Juvia was constantly following him around, but surely having a real person as a stalker was different from having a broom as a stalker, right? At least you could be more easily interested in a real person, or actually deter said real person with words. He'd shouted at Broom, cussed at him, tried to light him on fire, and whatever else it took, to no avail.

After another brawl a few weeks later, Max woke up slowly and with a groan. Visitar had prodded him awake, looking at him in concern for a few moments before looking to a place Max couldn't see. But after shifting his hips, he felt something swaying behind him and realized a familiarly distinct discomfort. It brought tears to his eyes, and slowly he turned around to find that his nightmares had once more surfaced in real life.

"Broom," he said in a tiny, broken voice, "why me?"

The weight of the broom had shifted with his speech, however, and the discomfort just increased.

And the worst part was that no one would help him.

Gray and Natsu were actually leaning on each other, dying of laughter, with Cana roaring with mirth into a barrel nearby and Bisca was shielding Asuka's young and impressionable eyes even though she had already asked, "Does Uncle Max love a broom, Mommy? Does the broom love him back?" and everyone else was either staring at him, appalled, or with disgust, or even with confusion.

 _I'm confused too_ , he whined mentally, but even Warren didn't hear—or pretended not to.

But slowly, and after many months, almost a _year_ , of this, Max grew used to Broom's presence. He even started referring to Broom as a 'him', rather than an 'it', and stopped sighing in exasperation or fleeing in fear when it had miraculously followed him home. It would happen again and again, without fail, so he stopped trying to fend it off.

He wasn't even mad when Laki confided that she had originally made Broom follow him around for shits and giggles after the first 'incident', but then her magic had somehow invigorated Broom and actually breathed some kind of 'life' into him. She was apologetic, and she admitted that Broom had had a mind of his own for almost a year already, so Max couldn't really get angry with her.

She made Broom's weird affection into a love triangle, but since Broom was her fault to begin with she didn't pay him much mind. She was a bit of an S and M herself anyway, so Broom just made things more fun in the bedroom.

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 **So I hope you enjoyed this cracky fic. I still can't believe I wrote it.**


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